My 40g breeder cycled in 1 week????

reefbroao

reefbroao

New member
I just started my breeder and surprisingly my peramiters are all perfect. I started with bio spira and my 17 lbs of LR it's Fiji rock so it's super porous only need about 30 lbs which I will be getting soon. I put in food to simulate feeding and I've been testing. Today I tested and it's all perfect. I'm thinking of adding some hardy fish because I'm quite surprised that the cycle came and went so quickly.

Should I add some of my snails or my hermits to explore the 40
 
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If you're going to add more Fiji live rock I would wait to add fish. If you're having the rock shipped it will start another cycle and if it's established in your own system or someone else's there's a good chance you will have a mini cycle. I would wait until all the lr is in the tank then check the levels for a week or 2
 
Did you have spikes in Ammonia and Nitrites? If you didn't, then you need to add a source of ammonia in there to make sure before you stock anything.

If you used live rock from an established tank, then yeah, you may have already cycled. But if it was dry, then I would be surprised if it went that quickly.

As far as adding more rock - Do that slowly if you have livestock. I learned that from a bad experience... Add one rock every week or two so you don't shock the system. (Again, if it's from an established tank, then it's not as big of a deal...you just dont want to add dry rock quickly if there's living things in the tank)
 
Did you see ammonia spike then change to nitrites then nitrates? If you did not see an ammonia spike your tank is not cycled.
 
I did see levels of ammonia but it never got too high. Probably because I did water changes ever 2-3 days

I have lots of frozen mysis. Should I dump a few cubes in and monitor the levels closely?
 
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Put in one cube, then measure after 2-3 days. Still best to wait several more weeks. Then add ONE creature every 2-3 weeks allowing the bio system to catch up with each increase of the bio load.
Have fun!
 
you might have done too many water changes during the cycle. My ammonia stayed at 2 ppm for about a week until nitrites came along. You should phantom feed more, I bet you'll see an ammonia spike once LR and phantom feeding happens without water changes.
 
I wouldn't recommend doing a water change during a cycle simply because you have no way to tell what's actually happening, especially changing it that frequently.

That being said, if you got cured live rock (cured essentially means cycled), then you likely won't ever have a "cycle" or any spikes of any kind.

If you add in more rock later on (which in my experience Fiji rock is not all that porous btw) and it is truly completely cured, there should be zero problem, especially if you keep it in water during transportation.

My suggestion, stop doing water changes. Put a frozen shrimp or 2 in there, and test every day. Since it's already cured rock, you probably won't see much, but if you do, let it go and remove the shrimp. It probably won't take more than a week since it's already cured rock.
 
Sweet. Sounds good. I have a little traveler on one of my rocks (not Fiji) that I'm trying to ID. I posted it in the correct thread as well just wondering what you guys think.
 

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If you actually added live rock to a system to start..it is totally possible to skip a cycle completely.
I have added sps 4 days after setting up tanks before with live rock
 
I think It did skip. I took measurements today and I'm at 0 all around. I even plopped 2 of my sapphire damsels in there to try to invoke an ammonia spike a few days ago and no effect. Still very hesitant to put my corals and goby in there right now. I think ill wait another day or two.
 
The only for sure way to test this to see if it's cycled is to add pure ammonia to 2 ppm. You can buy pure ammonia or ammonia that has no additives in it from a grocery store or hardware store in the cleaning section. Just read the label to make sure no additives are in it for instance pine scent etc. If the reading of 2 ppm is down to 0 in a 24 hr period and no nitrites your tank is cycled.

Only do this if you haven't put in any livestock
 
Yeah I'd obviously take those damsels out. I spoke to my lfs owner and he was saying that I probably beat the cycle. I'm already noticing some brown algae, even without any chemical readings. Also I've been running my skimmer. I know there's a lot of controversy around that but I don't see how logically it could effect the bio barrier. If skimmers were that effective we wouldn't need to cycle.

Also I've bought a job fugue to help with nitrate and phosphates.
 
The skimmer will not affect the cycle negatively but the water changes and adding Prime IMO would.

Also I would return the damsels as they will be very aggressive in that small of a tank. Nitrates and Phosphates can be exported with water changes and also chaeto will help. The biggest thing is to not over feed your fish, but don't go chasing 0 nitrates as you do need some to feed corals if you add any.

Since you have what sounds like Diatoms you probably are cycled I'd just like to make sure if I were you. Another hardy fish are Clowns so if you had plans of adding any maybe get a pair instead of the damsels. Perculas and Ocellaris are the least aggressive of all of them

Good luck and let us know how you come out.
 
Yeah I'm already seeing some algae bloom. I am gonna return the damsels today. And I was thinking of getting a pair of clowns. I wish I could get some wrasse but they wouldn't have enough room. Most likely I'm planing on going coral heavy
 
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